Caffeine is woven into daily life, turning up not just in morning coffee but in tea, chocolate, soda, and energy drinks.
Yet the same stimulant that keeps billions of people alert may also be changing the way the sleeping brain resets itself overnight, according to new research from the University of Montréal.
In a recent study, scientists combined electroencephalography with artificial-intelligence tools to reveal that evening caffeine drives the brain into a more active and less restorative mode during sleep. Researchers also found the effect is most pronounced in people under 30.
Probing the sleeping brain
The research team, led by doctoral trainee Philipp Thölke in the Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience Laboratory (CoCo Lab), recorded the nighttime brain activity of 40 healthy volunteers.
Each…